Well, it’s over, and my tired soul can’t help but be relieved. Nothing disastrous happened. We won our Gold. The city and the country came together like never before, and despite all the naysayers, it was a huge success.
This giant event that occurred for two weeks straight, was probably the most stressful event I’ve ever not had control over. As a resident of this great city, I wanted everything to go off with out a hitch. I can not tell you how many frantic discussions I had with Chad about snow on Cypress, or not doing well on the podium, or protesters making us look like fools on the world stage. I wanted us to suceed so badly that I couldn’t even watch any of the gold medal events because I was so nervous. But now, I can smile with pride, because these truly were Canada’s games.
Here are the last few pictures and stories from this amazing once in a lifetime experience.
Last week Alicia, Claudia, and I went for dinner down on Robson street while the Canada vs. Germany game was going on.
Claudia wore her Sock Monkey hat. Cutest thing ever!
There were guys playing drums in the middle of the street.
We went to Earls and got a table right away, which was pretty sweet.
Out on the Patio under a heat lamp watching the 3rd period.
We walked around Robson and Granville and were lucky enough to catch Joannie Rouchette skate her short program which they where projecting on the big screen.
The laser show was also really neat. It was pouring rain at this point and I was soaked.
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Saturday was spend quietly.
I realized on Friday night that I am much happier when I am not on the Internet and attached to Twitter and Facebook at the hip. There are just too many stupid people on both networking sites and there are too many things that I read that piss me off. I realized that most of my anger stems from crap I’ve read on Twitter or Facebook. I know too much about people and their thoughts. More then I want to know.
Saturday I turned off the the Internet and the TV and worked away oblivious to the world while listening to Radiohead. It was very nice and peaceful.
Once Chad came home from work we decided to check out the Olympic Torch at night, since Chad hadn’t had the opportunity to see it yet. We headed down there around 9ish and braved the crowds to see the torch. Chad stood there in awe for quite a while. After all the work he has done for the Olympics, all the time and effort hes put in, I could see how proud he was.
We checked out the rest of the sights in and around the torch. The gold rings were amazing, though my camera would not get a good picture of them.
We decided to go for a drink in Gastown. In no way did I want to brave the disaster that was the downtown core. I’m not a party person at the best of times, and after my relaxing quiet Saturday I really wanted to continue down that path. In reality, it was pretty stupid to go downtown at all. None the less, Chad had to see the torch.
So, we walked down Cordova.
Every place was packed. Every place we thought wouldn’t be packed was packed. Not really all that shocking.
Then we came across this little pub. This was the pub we went to once during the Summer that Chad and I started to date where a homeless man walked by us as we sat on the patio and told Chad he had to marry me. Chad listened. Deightons Well is the name and from the outside it is tiny, and sketchy, but there was a table for two open and they served beer.
We sat down and I instantly became annoying with the chicks behind us. I did not have my party hat or my patients hat on at all during the courseof the evening. The chicks were so annoying I begged Chad to find us somewhere else to sit. Luckily we discovered the bar expanded to the back. The best we could get was a couch, but trust me, it was better then sitting at a broken table with a bunch of drunk air heads.
The rest of the evening was a bust. I’ve never been surrounded by a more annoying clientele. I’ve become a snob in my old age and I just don’t care to hang around overly drunk, super annoying 20 year olds. I want a nice spot in the corner with some dark lightening and good drinks where I can have a conversation. I was in the mood for class and I got white trash.
The waitress for our section was also clueless. I watched her bring the wrong food to 4 different tables, and even when she brought the right food it was wrong and sent back. She totally ignored us and it literally took an hour of waiting for her before we could go home. She tried to charge us for beers she forgot to bring us and was impossible to get a hold of. Not to metion she looked like she was a 15 year old and homeless. I’m sorry, but it was the worst bar I have ever been to. Everything was dirty, the atmosphere was bad and the lighting was horrendous.
Snob Alert. I was just not in the right mood for the evening and was totally turned off by everything.
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I did not watch the hockey game yesterday, I would have thrown up if I did. Instead I locked myself in the bedroom and watched TV while refolding all my t-shirts and cleaning out the closets. I flicked back every now and then but I couldn’t watch it.
With about one minute to go I decided I was going to watch so that I could see us winning GOLD live. Yea, that was a bust. I’ve never sworn so loudly in my life. Chad thought I had broken things in the bedroom because I started to throw my boots on the ground. Over reaction much? No, I think the perfect amount of reaction.
I ran out to ask Chad what was going to happen next. He said there would be a break and then overtime. I asked him if he was going to watch it, but he didn’t know if he could handle the stress, so I asked him, if I wasn’t going to watch it, and he wasn’t going to watch it, how would we know who wins? He said, ‘You will just know, listen for it outside’.
I flicked back at around the 12 minute mark. Soon after that I heard little kids outside cheering. I kind of ignored it because I didn’t think it could possibly mean anything. Then there was more little kids. I turned the channel and there it was, GOLD.
Talk about relief.
I watched the closing ceremonies at my parents house. I enjoyed them making fun of how our torch didn’t work at the opening ceremonies and how Catriona Le May Doan got to finally light it. That was cute. I liked the way it poked fun at who we are. I was expecting more of a crowd reaction when Shatner, and the Mom from Home Alone, and MJF came out and did their thing. I enjoyed the dancing mounties and beavers and moose. I’m a sucker for Canadiana.
The musical acts where a whole nother story. I assume they chose who they chose because they wanted it to be up beat and fun, but they clearly have no clue which Canadian Bands people ACTUALLY want to see.
But now it is all over. Now, I can have my husband back. Now I can stop worrying about Spring showing up in the middle of Winter. Now I can get back to all those things I started but didn’t finish two weeks ago. I will miss the Olympics, but all good things have to come to an end.
